Geology and Landscape: Scotland

We provide high-quality geoscience solutions in 2D and 3D for Scotland's many environmental and social challenges.

Collaborating widely, our Edinburgh-based team ensures our science contributes to the needs of the private sector, local and central government, non-governmental organisations, academia and the wider community.

Scotland's geology – a fly-through from the Solway Firth to Stirling.
This movie, compiled in Virtalis GeoVisionary, begins over the Solway Firth and flies over to Carlisle. The pinks and yellow are Permo-Triassic rocks and the light blues and greens are Carboniferous rocks along the Scottish–English Border. Read more on YouTube

Selected research. Click on the drawing pins for more information.

Selected research

Accessing Subsurface Knowledge (ASK) is an innovative subsurface data and knowledge exchange network between public and private sectors that is focused around Glasgow. ASK aims to improve the understanding of subsurface conditions via the free flow of data and knowledge that underpins successful construction and regeneration projects.

Assynt, in North West Scotland, has attracted generations of geologists who have explored the area to learn how mountain ranges are formed.
You can now explore the geological structure below the surface of the Assynt area with this free interactive 3D model.

We are making geoscience information more accessible, relevant and understandable to the wide range of users involved in the sustainable regeneration and development of Glasgow and the Clyde Gateway — the national urban regeneration priority for Scotland over the next 25 years.

Plus exciting new applied research includes investigating the potential of Glasgow's abandoned coal mines for geothermal energy.

We capture key digital datasets underpinning the UK geoscience knowledge base and the national 3D geological model. We research the processes of mountain building and landscape development. Our current research focus is along the Great Glen and in the North West Highlands. We provide applied geological and tectonic expertise to the renewable energy sector, particularly hydroelectricity.

We work in partnership with Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) on the strategic assessment of the value and state of Scotland's geodiversity to help develop the basis for a national policy framework on geodiversity. We also collaborate with the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) on developing geodiversity within the Park and with the Scottish Geoparks in raising awareness of Scotland's geological heritage.

We collect digital geological and hydrogeological data from the land around the Moray Firth to produce linked 3D shallow groundwater models. This helps us to understand the influence of geological deposits on groundwater flow, the hydrology of flood-prone rivers, and the dynamics of past ice-streams; information used in the construction of the Forres area flood defence scheme.

Scientists from the universities of Cambridge, Leicester and Southampton, the British Geological Survey and National Museums of Scotland are collaborating to study some spectacular newly-discovered, early Carboniferous tetrapod fossils which will fill a significant gap in our understanding of how and why these animals became fully adapted to terrestrial habitats.